Generic Disclaimer: Gensomaden Saiyuki and the characters contained within don't belong to me, much as I wish they did. sigh...

Yeah, I know I said I would love this chapter, and I do, but it was so hard to write. ;; I'm sorry I took so long to write this, but things kept... popping up. -glances at Chocolate and shoves it behind her back where no one will see it- I don't know what made it so hard to write this chapter. I ended up doing the grand majority of it on paper, instead of on the computer, and then gave it to the wonderful Keistje to beta for fear I'd just delete the whole thing if I started editing it. --;; And I'm so irritated that my indents aren't taking anymore. WTF is up with that?

R for language and some blood. This one's pretty tame compared to some of the more recent ones. ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO, PEOPLE. –heart!-

Review comments on the bottom.

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italics indicate emphasis, internal dialogue, and dialogue that has occurred in the past/memories.

FEAR ITSELF

"...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, first inaugural address – March 4, 1933

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SECTION ELEVEN

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"Homura," Sanzo hissed, finger tightening on the trigger of his shoreijyuu, but the other man neither blinked nor looked in his direction.

To be honest, the priest had few encounters with the renegade god. Most of the times they met there were only a few seconds in which jibes were exchanged, and then after the fight began the war god was lost to his sight. The only expression he had ever seen on that eternally youthful face was arrogance (and perhaps once – Sanzo wasn't entirely sure he even saw it right – a touch of sadness back when the god had kidnapped Goku); to see a frown on that stern visage was strangely disconcerting. The mismatched eyes that were normally so mocking were instead strangely far away, lost in deep thought that had him looking through the boy curled up in the corner, rather than at him.

Sanzo risked a glance at the child in question. Goku had looked up at the unexpected sound as well, but he did not look at Homura with the level of anticipation that the older Goku he knew would have; instead, the look he gave the god was closer to tired recognition. With his face turned to the side, he could see the smear of blood that dripped down the boy's temple, a streak from coronet to jaw that looked suspiciously like it was drawn by trailing fingers. Perhaps by the mysterious person who had managed to suppress his murderous rampage as the seiten taisei?

He flicked his eyes back to the War Prince, but it didn't look like he had so much as twitched; he was still leaning casually on his sword, the chains connecting his wrists completely still. He must have been standing there for some time before the blonde had noticed his presence. Why is he here? Sanzo wondered. What part could he have in this dream?

It didn't take much to dredge up the memory of Gojyo's mother, or of the demon that had entered his own nightmare. In this dream, then, Homura must be the tool of the kyuuseishin.

Considering how much of a pain in the ass he was to fight in real life, that thought did not give Sanzo much comfort.

He hesitated to drop his guard when the god was only ten feet away, but he did allow the barrel of his pistol to fall slightly as he turned once more to the young child. Goku was still staring toward Homura with wide eyes, scared but not so frightened as before.

"Goku," he said softly.

The strangely golden eyes blinked once, but the boy did not look over.

"Goku, listen to me. Everything in this room, everything you see, is nothing more than a dream. None of it is real. All you have to do is wake up, and all of this will end."

The child blinked again, and his eyes dropped from the figure standing silently in the center of the room to the white-clad corpse lying only a few feet away from them. "Just a dream," he echoed in a weak whisper. And then, his voice strengthening slightly: "More like a nightmare."

From the corner of his eye Sanzo saw Homura's face decline slightly, and in glancing over realized that he, too, had dropped his gaze to the same body. The white silk in a sea of black leather and blood had caught the priest's eye only briefly, but it had not been on his list of priorities to examine once he found the child he was looking for. Now, though, he looked as well – to the figure sprawled face down on the tile, long blonde hair stained and sticky with blood, one hand flung out toward the corner of the room, toward Goku, and wondered why it didn't catch his attention from the onset.

The monkey king's diadem can only be made by the gods. That was what Kanzeon Bosatsu had said after Goku had snapped his limiter during Rikudo's assault, or so Hakkai relayed. An interesting observation, considering that Sanzo was certainly no god. All the same... from the evidence presented, this was likely the god who had restored Goku's limiter after his massacre of the soldiers. How had he managed to get close enough to a cornered seiten taisei in order to do so? And why, even though the god's face was turned away from him, did he get such a strangely uncomfortable feeling looking down on that corpse?

Sanzo looked away, ignoring the cold lump that formed in his stomach and threatened to make his nausea worse. This whole dream, memory of Goku's that it might be, was starting to get too surreal for his taste. He wanted out of this dream, this nightmare, as Goku rightly said. He wanted the kudzu to go ahead and show its cards so he could get this damn thing over and done with.

"You have to wake up, Goku," he said again, and this time the boy looked over at him. Sanzo wanted to kill the person who had made those eyes so haunted and empty.

"I wanna wake up so bad," the child whispered in reply.

"Then do it," the priest said, even though he knew it just wasn't that easy.

"But sometimes life is like a dream we cannot wake up from," Homura murmured from where he stood. So far he had shown no reaction whatsoever to Sanzo's presence, which made the blonde wonder who he was responding to. The god was still staring at the corpse as well, having not even glanced up to look at who he was addressing.

- a constant, monotonous, sibilant hissing that assaulted his hearing and vibrated in his lungs, his very bones -

"Sometimes," se said softly. "And sometimes the only way to face up to your fears and accept the course life has set for you... is to wake up."

The war god's eyes widened marginally, and he shifted to glance back to the entrance of the bloody room. Sanzo did not need to move in order to see who was speaking; that low alto voice was far too familiar for his liking. He could only recall having heard it once, mere days after first being introduced to the War Prince, but in some strange way it echoed in his bones with the comfortable ease of a person he had known for a long time. But he was very, very sure that this was only the second time he had laid eyes on the Merciful Goddess.

Kanzeon Bosatsu stood in the open doorway, on the outside looking in. Already the blood had begun to seep up the translucent silk of hir robes, but if this bothered hir se showed no sign of it. A small, almost sad smile darkened hir violet eyes. Se never once looked in the direction of Sanzo and the child he was guarding.

"Aren't you going to kill him?" se asked gently.

Goku seemed to shrink into himself at hir presence, crossing his arms defensively over his chest and drawing his knees in close again. It was a thoroughly depressing sight to see the boy he had always known as exuberant to act so... broken. Sanzo lowered his pistol completely and scooted forward the few feet that separated them, raising his free hand to rest it lightly on the tousled brown locks. This directed Goku's attention away from the gods, but the look Sanzo received was neither fear nor trust – but rather the look of a wounded animal that feared to trust again.

"I'm scared," the boy whispered.

The priest nodded, running his fingers through dark strands sticky with blood and sweat. "I know."

He turned to look back at the other two, who both ignored him as if he didn't even exist. Homura had been silent this whole time, staring at the goddess with the blank gaze of a man deep in thought. Will it use him? Sanzo could not help but wonder. Or the Merciful Goddess? Would I even be capable of defeating either of them? The only weapon he could use right now was his banishing gun, which had but five shots, and had proven to be ineffective against gods, anyways.

True, he had used the Maten-kyomen to banish the kyuuseishin in his own nightmare, but the priest honestly didn't believe he had the strength left to cast it again. The thick, heavy scent of blood was nauseating – and when combined with the headache pounding in his temples and the exhaustion coiling through his muscles, it was all Sanzo could do not to faint or lose what was left of his lunch right there on the spot. He wasn't sure he could dredge up the energy to move, let alone defend both himself and Goku from the gods.

But other than the scripture, what choices did he have left?

"The word of the Jade Emperor is law," Homura said finally, but his voice lacked conviction.

"Indeed it is," Kanzeon agreed, "and yet you still hesitate. Why, Homura? Is it because you cannot bring yourself to kill a harmless child?"

"He is hardly harmless."

That sad smile widened somewhat, and se took a few steps into the room, lifting the skirts of hir robes to step over the corpses blocking the doorway. "True." Hir eyes dropped to the floor, and se knelt despite the blood staining the tiling. One long fingered hand came up to gently touch the shoulder of the black-haired insurgent Sanzo had noticed upon entering. "But when backed into a corner, what animal – or man – would not fight?"

The war god looked to the corpse, watched as se slowly stroked the worn, stained leather like se might caress a lover's face. "I'm not questioning the reasoning behind his actions. I'm questioning whether or not he should be allowed to remain alive."

"No, you're not." Se leaned over the corpse, placing one hand on the ground to brace hirself as se ran her fingers through the hair of the one man dressed in a lab coat – one now more red than white. A thick lock of hair fell over hir shoulder and trailed in the half-dried blood. "You're questioning whether or not you should obey the word of the Jade Emperor. Which is law, as you just said."

A soft noise escaped the boy across from him, and Sanzo felt him turn his head. He looked over, only to see Goku staring at the gods again. "The shadows are moving," he whispered.

"What sha – " he started, glancing up as well.

Shadows were creeping out of the corners of the room, from behind the impressive Buddha statue, from any place that the source-less light did not properly illuminate. They slithered down the blood-speckled walls and across the tiling, moving with the quick, jerky progress of questing snakes.

"And you, in turn, are questioning my loyalty?" was Homura's sharp reply.

The tendrils converged on the bodhisattva as Sanzo watched, but got not closer than a few inches; they pooled in a writhing mass around hir kneeling form, but every time a wisp would attempt to touch the goddess, it would jerk back, as though stung.

"Only your sense of justice," Kanzeon replied mildly.

Goku shifted again, scooting forward a little and pressing his head back against Sanzo's hand. He could feel the sharp edge of the circlet against his palm as he resumed stroking the child's hair.

"Grapes," the boy mumbled, and Sanzo realized he could smell it too – the over-powering scent of blood and death was still there, but underneath it he could barely make out the scent of grapes

of kudzu blossoms

and the grating rattle of hairy leaves rubbing together.

"I am..." The War Prince trailed off, as though uncertain how to word his thoughts. There was an undercurrent of sadness and hostility in his voice that Sanzo had never heard before. "... well aware... of the Jade Emperor's concept of justice."

"I know." Kanzeon rose to hir feet, and the black shadows of the kyuuseishin drew away from hir presence with a wrathful hiss. It tried to gather in the space se left behind, but even those bloody tiles seemed anathema to it. "I do not mean to compare your justice to his."

"Then why ask?"

The bodhisattva glanced at him, then away again, and stepped across the room to the white-clad body only feet away from where Sanzo and Goku sat. Se passed so close to Homura that he was forced to step aside for hir, chains clinking loudly in the silence. The shadows tried to follow, but were repelled from every tile se had stepped only; even Homura, standing in hir wake, seemed unable to draw the kyuuseishin past that invisible barrier.

Blood had soaked the goddess' translucent clothing clear up to hir thighs, smeared on hir calves and caked on her feet. The lock of hair that had fallen in a puddle of blood still dangled over hir shoulder; the silk was now stained red and clung wetly to hir left nipple. Goku drew back as Kanzeon approached, drawing even closer to Sanzo than before. The priest wrapped an arm around the narrow shoulders and drew the boy into the shield of his body.

Despite Goku's continued dependence on him (outside of pseudo-demonic influenced dreams), it had been a long time since they had shared any kind of embrace. Goku was growing older, and no longer needed the physical reassurance he had needed as a child. Even though the Goku in this dream did no more than rest his head against Sanzo's chest, it was the closest thing to a hug he had experienced in... years.

Although he had damned the boy for being a nuisance at the time, Sanzo had forgotten how much he missed those rare embraces.

The bodhisattva slowly knelt before them, at the side of the downed deity, and rested a not-quite-hesitant hand on the bloody back. Behind her, Homura continued to wait for an answer, the black mass of the kudzu vine swirling around his feet.

"You weren't there," se said softly, "to see why the Jade Emperor gave the order to kill that poor boy."

"I am forbidden to attend those meetings with the Emperor," Homura pointed out.

"I know." Se sifted hir fingers through the fine hair, that blood-splattered gold that reminded Sanzo disturbingly of his own.

"What point of enlightenment are you attempting to make me achieve, bodhisattva?"

Kanzeon gathered a lock of the long hair in one hand and gently stroked it with the other. Now that hir back was turned to the War Prince, there was a genuine look of grief in hir dark eyes.

"He was born of the earth," se said, "and the earth is older than Buddha. The Way created the dragons, and they, too, are older than Buddha. The great Buddha obeys the karmic law, for the karmic law is even older than the earth and the Way and the dragons. We must all obey the laws of karma. Even the Jade Emperor." Se glanced at the god over hir shoulder. "Do you understand?"

Sanzo couldn't say he followed the logic himself – although it would certainly help if he had a better grasp of the circumstances – but there seemed to be a spark of understanding in Homura's mismatched eyes.

"Then all of this," the god said slowly, "is nothing more than divine retribution? You saw this coming, and did nothing?"

Se let the pale gold locks slip from hir fingers. "Everything comes to a balance eventually. It is not my place to interfere with karmic law." Se sat back on hir heels and slowly pushed hirself to hir feet. "Nor is it yours."

The darkness hissed and snapped at the feet of the gods, roiling like a nest of disturbed snakes that demanded appeasement. And yet they remained unaffected, perhaps even oblivious, to the presence of the kyuuseishin. And, still, oblivious to Sanzo; both of the gods looked back to Goku, looking through Sanzo, and again the sense of unreality returned.

When Kanzeon settled to hir knees again, at Sanzo's side, so close he could reach out and touch hir without hardly moving, the priest was struck with a sudden conflicting sense of indecisiveness. He had come into this dream to break the kudzu's grip on Goku, and to destroy the heaven's construct, but more and more he had to wonder – is this, truly, a dream?

In the center of the swirling mass of darkness, the War Prince turned away, resting his sword on his shoulder and closing his eyes. "Balance," he said, "sometimes needs a nudge in the right direction. But there is nothing to be done here. I can do nothing if you stopped the child first."

The bodhisattva's lips twitched into a smile, but it looked bitter. "Thank you, Homura."

The kudzu shrilled its anger as the war god walked out of the room without a word, chains jingling in the blood-soaked quiet, and Sanzo swore he heard the

rattle of leaves grating together and branches clattering like dry bones

man mutter something in response, but the words were lost.

And then the room was empty of all but a few living souls surrounded by a veritable graveyard.

"Goku," Kanzeon whispered in the near silence. "It's time to go."

Still pressed against Sanzo's chest, the boy shook his head violently, a small hand coming up to grab one sleeve in a white-knuckled grip. "I don't want to," he murmured against the priest's bamboo breastplate. "I don't want to go, I want to wake up."

"You will wake up," se promised gently. "But the time is not now. Night is the time for dreaming. You'll wake when it's daylight again."

Goku shivered and continued shaking his head, and again the buzzing swarm of fear rose in the back of Sanzo's mind. The nightmare tendrils of the kyuuseishin pooled around them like so much blood, dripping backwards up the painted walls and oozing in the corners, but did not come close enough to touch.

When se touched his thigh, hir fingers were warm, and absurdly clean from blood. Sahasra-bhuja, Kannon with-a-thousand-arms, each with an eye to symbolize the reaching out to those in distress – the thought came to him, uncalled – a hand for each of the souls who prayed to her for compassion, for mercy. Those fingers were long and delicate, the nails manicured and painted. They looked very much unlike his own, but something in the delicate bones of the wrist, the deceptive strength in the tendons that ran under the pale skin, was hauntingly familiar.

When he lifted his gaze to hirs, it was almost like looking in a mirror – Sanzo had never seen eyes the same shade as his before, but there they were, staring back at him and reflecting a kind of sad, bitter, mocking smile. The lips weren't anything like his, either, but he recognized the wry twist in one corner of the mouth that could tinge any expression with muted anger.

Se was looking at him, seeing him, staring expectantly, and Sanzo realized –

- this isn't a dream.

"It's time to go," Kanzeon repeated, and watched him as se said it, and didn't blink once.

Sanzo exhaled, slowly, feeling the stink of blood in his lungs (heavier than cigarette smoke), and found himself taking Goku by the shoulders and pushing the boy away. Goku resisted, leaning hard against the priest's hands, head lowered.

"I don't want to go," he repeated. "I won't go."

"You have to," Sanzo replied. Unbidden, the memory of a mountain peak and centuries-old seals came to mind, fluttering paper scrawled with archaic script and yellowed with time to the same shade as a young boy's eyes.

"I won't," Goku repeated stubbornly. "I want to wake up, like you told me to. I want to... but... "

The priest looked back to the white-clad corpse, to the out-stretched hand – calloused from years of handling a pen, not a gun – but he could see himself in the set of the bones and the curve of the wrist.

He felt the weight against his hands lessen as Goku went limp. "It's dark," the boy whispered. "I can't wake up when it's so dark."

Sanzo looked down at the tousled brown locks, spiky with blood. He would never see Goku as a child again – he knew this now. He took the time to remember how small the boy used to be, how wiry and delicate the shoulders under his hands were now and never would be again.

It was a depressing realization.

"The sun won't set forever, Goku," Sanzo said softly.

The disheveled head jerked back, face lifting to bring a startled gold gaze to his. Sanzo took the time to memorize that, too; Goku's face would narrow in age from this point on, losing the childish plump in the cheeks, losing the softness of youth. He would never look like this again.

"You promise?" the child whispered, his gaze flitting from one of Sanzo's eyes to the other, searching for any hint of a lie.

He nodded, slowly. And he knew that, if he were given the choice of going back and changing his life... he would have trudged up that steep mountainside and extended his hand to a wide-eyed boy anyway. Even with all the pain and irritation that came from it. Even with all the baggage it burdened him with.

"I promise," Sanzo said.

When the bodhisattva reached between them and cupped Goku's cheek, the boy did not protest. He obediently allowed hir to turn his face to hirs, and said nothing when se gently stroked his temple with hir thumb.

"I promise, too," se said. "The sun will rise again."

Goku drew in a shuddering breath and nodded his head; the buzz of anxiety that spilled across the wire that bound him to Sanzo (and Sanzo to him) faded under the stubborn crush of resolve. "Okay."

Kanzeon smiled, a genuine one this time, and leaned forward, and pressed hir lips to the coronet that bound Goku's not-quite-demonic energy and kept the seiten at bay.

- and the kyuuseishin shrieked, a scream of shattering limbs and sap exploding in the fire, and Goku's eyes fell closed, and Sanzo swore his head was being ripped apart, shredded like nails down a chalkboard, Kanzeon's painted nails, but Kanzeon just smiled and held Goku's limp form to hir breast, and asked him –

"Can you be - ?"

- but then the room exploded, his mind slivered to pieces, and white light burnt his eyes and ears and Sanzo never heard the end of hir question.

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It was raining when he opened his eyes this time, hissing and shushing like a roaring ocean beating itself on the rocks of the shore, but what fell on his shoulders and blew in his eyes was the dust and dried leaves of a decaying forest. The scent of tree silt shoved its way up his nostrils like (blood? why would it make him think of blood?) ashes from a disturbed fire, and his sinuses tightened in protest. But it was too dark to see clearly, so dark after the (light? what light?) brief second that passed during blinking, and Sanzo's weak human eyes could not keep up with the change.

"Sanzo?" he heard, weakly, and felt Goku shift in his grasp (when had he gone from running his fingers through the boy's hair to cradling Goku in his lap?), and remembered that the kudzu was all around them (how could he have forgotten?) and shuddering in the slow agony of death.

He had closed his eyes for just a moment, the heartbeat it took to blink, and Goku had woken. Where was the nightmare he had set out to wrest the boy from?

No – it was there, in front of him, the great twisted trunk of the kyuuseishin trembling as it sought to bring its mobile limbs to bear, but Goku and he were still out of reach. The roots that had seeped their poison into Goku's veins were discarded and shriveled, and the vines overhead were shedding their leaves like rain as they died.

He forced his gaze to focus, forced his eyes to adjust, but there was so little light to see by (what happened to the moon?) even as the vines overhead broke under their own weight and exposed the cloudy sky above. The branches hit the ground in rustling crashes, spraying dust and twigs and leaves in their wake, and he felt Goku turn and press his face against the cloth of his robes to protect his eyes.

The kyuuseishin was dying, and Sanzo hadn't done a thing.

Can you be – ?

He lifted the shoreijyuu and emptied the chambers in the base of the gnarled trunk. Five shots was all it took before the vine finally stopped twitching.

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Gojyo had already found his way back to the rough-packed road and persuaded Hakuryuu to change into his jeep form when Sanzo broke through the underbrush. Goku was dead weight in his arms, having passed out again after the kudzu was destroyed at the root; as light as the boy was, the extra weight made him stagger, and navigating his way through bushes that snagged his robes at every step was a hassle his exhausted body didn't need.

The red-head was leaning against the side of the jeep as Sanzo approached, the long strands that fell in his face fluttering with every breath. He looked as bad as the priest felt, and somewhere deep inside Sanzo was pleased the asshole hadn't gotten off lightly. But he couldn't even muster a smirk as he dumped Goku's limp form in the back seat alongside Hakkai.

"The monk and his monkey," Gojyo said from the opposite side of the vehicle. He hadn't even looked up from his perusal of his boots when Sanzo stepped onto the road. "How touching."

"Fuck you," the priest replied, but there was no heat in his voice. He couldn't collect enough energy to breathe properly, let alone fight with the obnoxious half-demon.

Maybe Gojyo knew that. Or maybe he was just as exhausted and didn't want to fight, either. When he finally lifted his head, it was only to transfer his gaze from his boots to the two unconscious men in the backseat. "You kill it?"

A good question. The kudzu had already been dying when he put five blessed bullets beneath the bark of its main stem. He just had no idea why it had gone from living to dying in the instant it took him to blink, when he hadn't even been given a chance to free Goku from its nightmarish grip.

"Yeah," Sanzo replied. Who cared if his bullets were the finishing blow or not? The kyuuseishin was dead and rotting in the wilds around them. That was all that mattered.

That... and whether or not Goku would remember his dream (whatever he dreamed) when he woke up again.

The priest pushed himself away from the jeep, turning way from the vehicle and its inhabitants and the half-breed that watched over them. He was done with this place. One more battle won, one more day saved; it was high goddamned time he got a shower and a place to sleep. Sanzo didn't even care if said place was soft or not, so long as it was horizontal.

"You driving?" he asked, and stared down the road they had driven back when the sun was still high. At night it didn't look all that much different – just another dirt track through the woods, vanishing in the dark so many feet away. It was hard to believe this simple road had been surrounded by malevolent death only hours (less – it couldn't have been that long since he left the husk of the kyuuseishin behind) before.

"Sure." Sanzo heard the scuff of heels in the dirt as Gojyo moved – but the footsteps stopped abruptly, then started again, hard and staccato, and Sanzo felt a hand on his arm that spun him around to meet Gojyo's piercing glare.

"What the fuck - ?!" he started, but then he realized the half-breed wasn't staring at him so much as at his robes.

"What the hell happened?" the red-head demanded. "You're bleeding all over the fucking place!"

"What?" Sanzo asked intelligently, then dropped his gaze as well.

His robes were literally saturated with blood from mid-thigh down, some of it caked and dried, some of it still wet and glistening black in the darkness, wet enough to have leaves and twigs and dirt stuck to it from his trek through the underbrush.

And on his left sleeve was smeared one tiny, perfect handprint.

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A/N:

(/mindfuck) -cackles insanely- I love this chapter. D

keistje: You are too good to me. Thank you so much for beta'ing this chapter for me. -snuzz- I promise the ending will be soon. –heart-

Eclispe45: -evil grin- I don't live far enough north in Florida to see kudzu, but grape-vines have much the same effect on me. I want to see kudzu sooooo bad, but I'm afraid I might have spoiled any love for them by writing this fiction. –cackles insanely- I'm glad you liked! –heart-

Ouri: No worries for not commenting, I love you anyways. –heart- And yeah, who's watching does make a big difference on how Sanzo reacts, huh? He's far too concerned with his bad boy image. –tsk tsk-

kitsuni-oni: I'm glad you like the story so far! –heart- For your questions: Yeah, Sanzo got sucked into Gojyo's dream by touching skin-on-skin. If one person is already in a kudzu-dream, the second person can be drawn into their dream by touch alone. And, I don't think Homura is in the manga at all. I think he's restrained completely to the anime, except for one very short chapter that Minekura drew after the Gensomaden series had already ended. And in the anime they certainly don't have any time to sit down and chat over tea. :3 I'm so glad you consider this a fave. –blush- Hope you enjoyed this chapter, too!

Koinu-Chan: -is poked- Well, this is a bit late in the coming, but I guess your poking me into finishing this chapter worked out in the end, right? :3 So glad you like!

Sanada: -evil laughter- I had so much fun writing that last chapter, and I have to admit that writing the scene leading up to Gojun was my most favorite part. I love the intricacies involved in Gaiden as well, and I'm pretty damn impatient in the waiting for Minekura to finish writing out what happened in Heaven five hundred years ago. –pokes her into finishing Gaiden- I know this comes two months after you asked me to hurry and update, but I hope you haven't given up on the story. –sweatdrop- Hope you enjoyed!

Me-Nuriko: Glad you thought the same thing about Kenren's hair and eyes. –snerk- It is a little inconsistent between the anime and manga, isn't it? And I think one of the first shots of Tenpou in the anime has him with green hair. oO Ah well. And I like Homura too much to leave him out of the story, even if he has all the qualifications for a Marty Stue. –laughs insanely- So glad I'm able to describe this well enough you can really see it. Hope you like this chapter, too!

Merf: Unfortunately, Saiyuki Gaiden is incomplete. There are many fanon ideas of what happened at the end of Gaiden, but none of them can be picked as right or wrong because Minekura hasn't gotten off her ass to finish the Gaiden series yet. –snerk- I have a few different ideas myself, and this is just one of them. I'm going to write another Gaiden-ending in A King Reborn (whenever I get /that/ finished.... –sweatdrop-). A really good alternative ending to Gaiden is called 'Gaiden with a Difference', by incandesenc. She's such a good author. –heart- I can only hope that my stories can live up to that kind of standard. I hope you like this chapter as well as you've liked all the others. –heart-

sycscribe46: -blushing insanely- No nit-picks at all! That's such an incredible compliment! –heartheartheart- You are such a sweetheart, you know that? I'm so glad that you like this story, and took the time to let me know. Gives me the serious warm and fuzzies. –snuzz- I know this chapter is late in coming, but I hope it lives up to the rest of the standard this story has set. Thank you so much for your review! –heart!-

Mato-ko: -laughing!- No worries, I'm not going to forget about this story! Sure, I'm probably going to get side-tracked again before I manage to finish the last chapter, but I'm not leaving this incomplete. You can rest assured there. –heart- Thank you for your kind comments, and I hope you like this chapter, too. :3